ABSTRACT: In consideration of the decision taken at the 34th congress in Bologna, which binds the Radical Party to refrain from participating, as such, in the electoral competitions, the author proposes to the single radicals the creation of a "centre of initiative for lists of civic, environmentalist and reformist initiative", having as interlocutors the lay parties and the socialists, the greens and the environmentalists, without excluding the communists.

(Radical News N. 51 of 11 March 1988)

The decision taken by the radical party at the last congress in Bologna, to become a transnational party, has made another choice equally necessary and explicit: that of no longer competing with party lists in Italy at any type of election.

It may seem odd that no political expert, no serious columnist, has grasped this aspect of the congress motion, which does not involve a relingquishement or an escape, but which, on the contrary, offers an opportunity - for the radicals, bu also and especially for the non-radicals who want to operate for the reform of the political system -, a field for a possible initiative. However, I do not want to reprimand careful and intelligent observers such as Orazio Petracca, Piazzesi and Galli della Loggia (1), for not having noticed an element which was difficult to trace in the articles of the reporters and of the correspondents of their papers, which were instead filled with articles on Cicciolina (2) or on the presumed parricide or regicide of Pannella (3) carried out by Brutuses by now attached to their Italic power (as if this power did not ensue from the elections and the participation in the elections).

As the comrades who participated in the radical congress know, I am one of those who greatly insisted on this aspect of the congress choices, and who struggled (disagreing with Marco Pannella on this point) in order for this choice to be present, explicit, laically intelligible, also in the congress motion. And that is what occurred. Quoting the motion on this point: "In giving up any participation in the electoral competitions, also and chiefly in Italy, the radical Party gives the radicals the responsibility of pursuing, with the uttermost initiative, the promotion of new reformative political subjects and of political and electoral aggregations capable of foreshadowing a lay, alternative force capable of controlling the democratic transformation of the institutions". The First Secretary quite aptly underlined, during his first electoral broadcast, that while "the radical party as such will not participate in the electoral competitions", this should not only not necessarily imply an absence of initiative

and electoral presence on the part of the radicals, but on the contrary, that it can involve the cessation of the long forced abstinence which, because of its choices, the radical party has condemned its members and militants to, for example in the regional, provincial, municipal and district elections. But then, the questions to ask ourselves are: which political initiative should be taken on the electoral field? Should we wait for others to take it, or is it preferable for the radicals to take it? Should we essentially aim to a unitarian orientation and to a single choice, or can we hypothesize various choices? And if the political subjects and the new aggregations the motion refers to are difficult to achieve, can we hypothesize lists promoted or sponsored only or especially by radicals? With a party such as this (the electoral choice does not concern it), can everything be entrusted to the spontaneity of the individuals, or - in the best of hypotheses - of radical associations or groups?

I would have preferred to answer these questions following some initiative, some proposal coming from other political forces, or some provocation from some commentator and columnist. But since, for the moment, we should not expect significant news from the other political forces, even the "newest" ones (the most open attitude to this moment has been that of two parliamentarians from Democrazia Proletaria, Tamino and Ronchi, a minority in their party), and since columnists and commentators haven't yet had the opportunity to reflect on this aspect of our choices, I will advance a modest proposal to those who might be interested in this reasoning, radicals and non-radicals.

From the electoral point of view, that of the Radical Party should be considered a sort of "unilateral disarmament", with the warning that we are not submissive pacifists, but active supporters of nonviolence, and that therefore the political initiative can and should be promoted in another shape and with other weapons from those of the party list.

I would like to rule out banal operations of electoral transvestism (with the radical party not competing, but with radical lists). And I also rule out, at the state of the facts, operations of mechanical convergence into other lists - for example, in the green or socialist lists. We are interested in political initiatives: we are interested in contributing to the creation of elements, even limited ones, of novelty in the political and electoral field, not of electoral positions of this or that list. Apart from anything else, in our history, we have proven that even when we wanted elective representations we conquered them for ourselves, without waiting for others to give them to us.

As far as I am concerned, I am interested in a political initiative with ambitious targets and consistent with the proposals we made for the reform of the political system and the exemplifications of the political and electoral fronts (Anglo-Saxon uninominal system for the political elections; direct election of the mayor and majority elections for the administrative elections). I am therefore interested in a political initiative aiming to lists of "civic, lay, environmentalist and reformist unity"; an initiative carried out having as interlocutors the lay parties and the socialists, the greens and the environmentalists, without excluding the communists; an initiative which, linking itself to the local and regional boards, should be capable of giving a positive answer to the sectional drive which is present (and therefore lists that should be lists of civil unity above all, non-partyist, but open to the social and civil reality and to its most significant expressions).

On other hand, while being convinced that a passage from the current party power to a true democracy cannot be achieved without the courage to reform the Constitution or at least the electoral system, it is also true that a radical reform of the political system is unthinkable exclusively through operations of institutional and electoral engineering, and without these being preceded and accompanied by wide and far-reaching processes of political renewal and by new forms of aggregation and unity.

Are there others - radical or non-radical - who are interested in contributing to the dissolution of political and also electoral barriers? If there were, if there were many of us, it would be appropriate to immediately create a "centre of initiative for lists of civic, environmentalist and reformist unity". Then, when things get going, we will see how the situation evolves and will plan the next move. But first come politics, then the elections.

Translator's notes

(2) GALLI DELLA LOGGIA ERNESTO. Historian, university professor, journalist. Of Marxian formation, he then supported liberalism and ran at the elections of 1992 for the "Lista Referendum" ticket.

(2) STALLER ILONA (Elena Anna). (Budapest 1951). Best known as Cicciolina, porn actress, elected member of Parliament in 1987 on the radical party ticket.

(3) PANNELLA MARCO. Pannella Giacinto, known as Marco. (Teramo 1930). Currently President of the Radical Party's Federal Council, which he is one of the founders of. At twenty national university representative of the Liberal Party, at twenty-two President of the UGI, the union of lay university students, at twenty-three President of the UNURI, national union of Italian university students. At twenty-four he advocates, in the context of the students' movement and of the Liberal party, the foundation of the new radical party, which arises in 1954 following the confluence of prestigious intellectuals and minor democratic political groups. He is active in the party, except for a period (1960-1963) in which he is correspondent for "Il Giorno" in Paris, where he established contacts with the Algerian resistance. Back in Italy, he commits himself to the reconstruction of the radical Party, dissolved by its leadership following the advent of the centre-left. Under his indisputable leadership, the party succeeds in

promoting (and winning) relevant civil rights battles, working for the introduction of divorce, conscientious objection, important reforms of family law, etc, in Italy. He struggles for the abrogation of the Concordat between Church and State. Arrested in Sofia in 1968 as he is demonstrating in defence of Czechoslovakia, which has been invaded by Stalin. He opens the party to the newly-born homosexual organizations (FUORI), promotes the formation of the first environmentalist groups. The new radical party organizes difficult campaigns, proposing several referendums (about twenty throughout the years) for the moralization of the country and of politics, against public funds to the parties, against nuclear plants, etc., but in particular for a deep renewal of the administration of justice. Because of these battles, all carried out with strictly nonviolent methods according to the Gandhian model - but Pannella's Gandhi is neither a mystic nor an ideologue; rather, an intransigent and yet flexible politician - h

e has been through trials which he has for the most part won. As of 1976, year in which he first runs for Parliament, he is always elected at the Chamber of Deputies, twice at the Senate, twice at the European Parliament. Several times candidates and local councillor in Rome, Naples, Trieste, Catania, where he carried out exemplary and demonstrative campaigns and initiatives. Whenever necessary, he has resorted to the weapon of the hunger strike, not only in Italy but also in Europe, in particular during the major campaign against world hunger, for which he mobilized one hundred Nobel laureates and preeminent personalities in the fields of science and culture in order to obtain a radical change in the management of the funds allotted to developing countries. On 30 September 1981 he obtains at the European parliament the passage of a resolution in this sense, and after it several other similar laws in the Italian and Belgian Parliament. In January 1987 he runs for President of the European Parliament, obtaini

ng 61 votes. Currently, as the radical party has pledged to no longer compete with its own lists in national elections, he is striving for the creation of a "transnational" cross-party, in view of a federal development of the United States of Europe and with the objective of promoting civil rights throughout the world.